1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer implemented method, a computer program product, and a data processing system. More specifically, the present invention relates generally to a computer implemented method, a computer program product, and a data processing system for proactive notification of availability status in an e-mail communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a global network of computers and networks joined together by gateways that handle data transfer and the conversion of messages from a protocol of a sending network to a protocol used by a receiving network. On the Internet, any computer may communicate with any other computer. Information between computers travels over the Internet through a variety of languages also referred to as protocols. The set of protocols used on the Internet is called the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
The Internet has revolutionized communications and commerce as well as being a source of information and entertainment. For many users, e-mail is a widely used format to communicate over the Internet. It is commonplace for users to send e-mail messages to other users through the Internet.
The use of e-mail messages is commonplace for personal and business use. E-mail messages are used by individuals to keep in touch with and communicate with other users. Additionally, e-mail messages provide a medium to collaborate and exchange documents.
E-mail systems provide a method for a notification of availability status to be sent in response to incoming e-mail to a user. This notification is commonly called the “out of office” feature. Implementations such as IBM® Lotus Notes® provide a lot of flexibility in how out-of-office can be configured, with features such as start and end date for out-of-office notification, different out-of-office messages for different collections of users, and flexibility and personalization in how the out-of-office notification is expressed.
Existing out-of-office solutions employ a reactive notification. The participants only become aware of their counterparts being away when they send an e-mail and receive an out-of-office message. It is possible that the sender has invested much effort and some degree of urgency in writing an e-mail without realizing the recipient is unavailable. This often leads to decreased productivity as well as unnecessary use of resources such as network bandwidth and storage.